Tron – Commentary Review

The commentary brings writer/producer Steven Lisberger, producer Donal Kushner, animators Harrison Ellenshow and Richard Taylor together. Nerdlings, I salute you. Me --- with my base computer, processing computers, laptops, wireless network, PDAs, and robot vacuum cleaner --- I am but a caveman compared to the you! Oook.

Linsberger referred to the backups of his scripts as his ‘identity disk’, and you know what, he wasn’t being funny. Of course these guys were doing computer and effects animation at the turn of the computer animation century. Tron is THE landmark of computer animation, and they’ll tell you all about it with phrases along the lines of We-had-to-render-the-graphics-with-a-stone-and-chisel and it-took-a-month-to-render-a-single-frame, and we-had-to-walk-four-miles-in- the-snow-to-render-with-cement-blocks-strapped-to-our-feet. Of course they say it with deadpan sincerity, “What excites artists is the ability to get in an arena that hasn’t been handled yet.” At one moment Lisberger shares a moment of pride. Leonard Nimoy called him to say, and I quote, “You guys really went to the edge of the envelope on that one.” Like all of the commentary this tidbit was delivered with the beautiful monotonic passion of true nerdlings. This commentary is must for all who wonder if they really, really qualify as the real thing or are just wannabees.

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